Last week my meal plan was from the Six Sisters Stuff Meal Plan Subscription. I have never cooked the whole meal plan as written and I think I’m going to from now on. The meals this week were easy to cook – so easy Hubs has cooked several of them! They also did not disappoint when it came to feeding the family and everyone enjoying what was served.

I am a big fan of Six Sisters Stuff and that’s one reason I joined the Meal Plan subscription. I have always just picked the recipes from the weekly email, or previous weeks that I’ve saved and then moved on. The simplicity of having the menu and grocery list emailed to me, BEST THING EVER! The grocery list was easy to navigate and made preparing this week’s meals a breeze.

I have been trying to come back and write more on the Meal Planning how-to series, but I’m stuck. I don’t know where to begin, or what information would even be helpful. I’ve enlisted the help of the Design Team for jumping off points, but I’d like to hear from you.. what do you want to know?

Summertime blues, they seem to happen to me EVERY summer break. I’m not sure if it’s because we’ve been sick this week, or if it’s the hot weather that gets to me or maybe it’s the lack of stuff to do, but MAN they are kicking in hard today!

It’s only the first real week of summer break and I’m not sure it’s any fun. Since the kids have been home at least 3 of us have had some head cold/sinus infection that the Boy bought home from school. Not only have we been sick, but Florida has now decided that it should be rainy season and it’s done nothing but rain for the past couple of days.

Whew! This planner kit has been a thorn in my side. Seriously, I love the colors, I thought I loved the theme.. and then I’ve sat here and stared at it for DAYS. I am loving the results, but this was a true labor of love. All of the other products that are in the store have taken me maybe 4-5 days from start to finish, but this one.. I think it’s almost been a month!

This planner kit contains a little bit of everything. Basics – flags, dots and headers, boxes of all shapes and sizes, a weekly kit and calendar toppers and a dashboard to help you plan your month with an under the sea theme.

Happy Memorial Day! I hope you’re having a great 3-day weekend. I would like to thank all members of the armed forces for their service, not just today, but every day. They put their lives on the line for the better of their country – no matter what country they are fighting for – and some have paid the ultimate price for that service. I have many friends, that were or still are active members of the armed forces; my husband included, and it is an honor to know them. So thank you to everyone who has, or is serving.

Besides being Memorial Day, today starts our first official week of summer break! I feel as though the past few months have just flown by and I’m not really sure what to do with myself now that everything has either ended or slowed down. This week the menu is going to reflect the slower pace of life around here. Easy recipes that either myself, Hubs or the kids can make in little to no time. I just want to sit back and relax (and read) this week and I don’t really want to be in the kitchen for too long, but I also don’t want to eat out every night either.

So last week I tried to cook every meal on a sheet-pan, we have not tried every recipe I had on the meal plan as life got in the way, but the ones we did make, were AMAZING! The kids and hubs gave rave reviews on the dinners we did make and honestly they were THAT good.

This week’s meal plan isn’t nearly as exciting as all sheet-pan meals, but there are 2 new ones and lots of old favorites. With this being our last week of school, my kids are done with this school year on Wednesday, I wanted to make recipes that I know are pretty easy to make or ones that I haven’t made in a REALLY long time. There’ are several that I don’t think we’ve had in at least a year!

The last days of school are upon us. The kids have a week and then they are out of school for summer and I’m just starting to realize that I’m going to be a parent of an incoming Freshman in High School (how has this happened?!?) and a Fourth Grader. It’s a daunting idea, lemme tell ya. I don’t even know where to begin with how I actually FEEL about the Girl starting High School in August. I was so overwhelmed at the 9th Grade Parent information night that I feel like I shut down and I still don’t know if we’re doing the right thing, or if we even signed her up for the correct classes. Well, all of the core stuff, we know we’re good with the band classes.

Since she is in the band we have already had a little taste of what High School will be bringing. Last night we had a Band Parent information night, picked up her marching band instrument and realized that we just said good-bye to our social life for the next 4 years. And that’s just for band. That’s not including the Boy and his activities on top of the band schedule.

I’m just going to go ahead and apologize now, this is gonna be long.. The Scrapbook Expo was a week and a half ago, but we have been so busy around here I haven’t had a chance to really sit down and blog the day.

If you follow me over on Instagram you have more than likely seen the photo’s from the adventure that the Bestie & I had. We spent a day at the Stamp & Scrapbook Expo in Orlando at the Gaylord Palms Resort on May 5th. We had a great time, but let me tell ya, it’s OVERWHELMING the amount of stuff we looked at. I’m not kidding! We took an hour long class and then spent the rest of the day looking at everything, 4 hours of wandering and shopping! Luckily we didn’t break the bank, but we could’ve!

The main reason we went was because someone *cough* me *cough* wanted to meet Becky Higgins. I have been a Project Life follower for years, since it began, and I love, love the concept. I have been a Digital Scrapbooker since 2008 after the Boy was born and I have documented our lives for the past few years in digital format. This year I decided to go with physical products – I’m behind, but that’s okay – to try something different. We opted to take the physical product class, the Bestie has used the physical products before and I’m new to the whole physical card thing, so I thought it would be a great starting off point.

Every year as a summer “tradition” of sorts, the kids and I make a summer bucket list. This started back in 2011 when the Boy was 3. This hasn’t only been limited to a summer bucket list, we also created a Road Trip Bucket List for our road trip a couple of years ago. I wanted to have things to keep them occupied, because what are you supposed to do for 11 weeks of no school with a 7 & 3 year old? Well, I created a bucket list. It was a list of fun, small or big things to do and we worked our way through the list over summer break.

I had seen different things on Pinterest for ways to incorporate the kids – use popsicle sticks, pull one out each day and that’s what you were off to do for the day, color code each item and each color will depend on how much time you have to do said item. We have tried both options. We’ve even tried writing our list onto colored paper and then drawing one from a bucket – I know.. cliche! Now that they are older, an old fashioned list seems to work just fine.

Sheet-pan meals where have they been all of my cooking life?!? I have recently tried a few of these one pan wonders and the family is just loving them. They are SO easy to prep and just pop into the oven. So this week I thought I would go through my recipe board on Pinterest and make a whole week’s meal plan from them. I have been pinning these recipes like crazy. I’m all about quick and easy these days, so why not try a few of these recipes while we’re still busy with school, sports and band and see how practical they really are? Well, that’s what I’m doing this week!